In the art of thermal ink jet printing, it is known to provide a bladder type of ink reservoir for supplying ink to a thermal ink jet printhead. The printhead will typically include a thin film resistor (TFR) substrate having a plurality of heater resistors therein, and a barrier layer and orifice plate member is usually mounted on top of the thin film resistor substrate. This member will typically include the ink reservoirs which are disposed above the heater resistors and further defines the corresponding drop generator nozzles for ejecting ink onto a print medium.
The bladder reservoir for supplying ink to the entire printhead may, for example, take the form of a rubber thimble which is located within the housing to which the thermal ink jet printhead is affixed. This type of reservoir and printhead construction is disclosed, for example, in the Hewlett Packard Journal, Volume 36, Number 5, May 1985, incorporated herein by reference.
Whereas these bladder type reservoirs have proven generally satisfactory for certain types of thermal ink jet (TIJ) printers, they nevertheless take up too much space and are unable to hold a sufficiently large volume of ink for other types of printer applications.